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			<h1>Letters from the <abbr title="Internal Revenue Service">IRS</abbr></h1>
			<p>Day 00361: Wednesday, 2016 March 02</p>
		</header>
<p>
	I&apos;ve run into an issue with normalizing <abbr title="Internet Relay Chat">IRC</abbr> <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr>s.
	When I originally was looking through the documents on <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr> schemes, I was looking for default ports.
	I also assumed that the documents were consistent.
	However, this is not the case at all.
	The official document that <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/prov/irc">introduces the <code>irc:</code> scheme as provisional</a> specified the scheme syntax as &quot;irc://&lt;host&gt;[:&lt;port&gt;]/[&lt;channel&gt;[?&lt;password&gt;]]&quot;.
	It cites three documents as references: a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat">Wikipedia article</a>, an <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-butcher-irc-url-04">expired draft by Simon Butcher</a>, and an <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-mirashi-url-irc-01">expired draft by Mandar Mirashi</a>.
	Wikipedia says that the scheme syntax is &quot;irc://&lt;host&gt;[:&lt;port&gt;]/[&lt;channel&gt;[?&lt;channel_keyword&gt;]]&quot;.
	Assuming that &quot;channel keyword&quot; means &quot;password needed to access the channel&quot;, that means that the official provisional scheme document used the format from Wikipedia.
	However, neither provide information on the default port number.
	Additionally, the two drafts use different syntaxes than the scheme registration document and Wikipedia, and even use different syntaxes than one another.
	The two draft documents even specify different default port numbers.
	I had been using Butcher&apos;s draft, as it was the only reference mentioned in the document registering the <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/prov/ircs"><code>ircs:</code> <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr></a>.
	However, the draft&apos;s syntax doesn&apos;t match the <code>ircs:</code> scheme registration either.
	At least as there is only one reference mentioned in this registration, I can at least assume that the default port from the referenced draft, but I don&apos;t feel safe doing that because the syntax doesn&apos;t match.
	Why would the default port number be accurate? This is a mess now that I actually take a better look.
	I need to once again fix all the <code>ircs:</code> <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr>s on both my sites to make them match the actual registered syntax.
	As for my <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr> normalization classes, I&apos;m not sure I can properly implement port normalization, as I can&apos;t be sure what port to normalize <strong>*to*</strong>, and I&apos;m not sure if I should try to handle all three syntaxes or just the registered one.
	I can&apos;t help but feel that this lack of usable data is Microsoft&apos;s fault.
	Some Microsoft lackey went through and registered a bunch of in-use schemes, including but not limited to <code>irc:</code>, <code>irc6:</code>, and <code>ircs:</code>, and didn&apos;t even bother to actually provide complete information about the schemes.
	I think I&apos;ll use a mixed syntax for attempting to parse <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr>s for their components.
	I&apos;ll then normalize to the format specified in the scheme registration document.
	If any syntax-dependent components from one of the drafts is used in a given <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr> and that <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr> does not specify a port, the default port from that draft will be added.
	No port numbers will be removed, as I&apos;m not sure a reliable default port number is available.
</p>
<p>
	I set up the classes for the <code>https:</code> and <code>http:</code> first, only to realize that I should have started with the <code>gopher:</code>, <code>telnet:</code>, and <code>tn3270:</code> classes first.
	The <code>telnet:</code> and <code>tn3270:</code> schemes are pretty obscure, but Gopher can link to them, so these classes will be needed for the updated Gopher directory-parsing function.
	I started work on the class for normalizing <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr>s of the <code>gopher:</code> scheme, but ran out of time.
</p>
<p>
	I managed to get ahold of both the garbage company and the cable company.
	The garbage company was more than happy to help, but for security reasons, said that they would send the bills to the email address on file instead of my mother&apos;s new email address.
	It turns out that the cable company&apos;s website is pretty messed up.
	I&apos;m not sure if it&apos;s actually due to maintenance though.
	Using a different <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr>, you can actually access the account.
	However, my mother&apos;s account is somehow not the primary account, so it&apos;s unable to access past bills.
	I brought up a chat with a representative, but the representative was unable to help either.
	She said that the account wasn&apos;t the primary one, and said that only my mother, the account holder, could authorize me or the account to access the past bills.
	She tried to call my mother, but my mother couldn&apos;t pick up the telephone because she was at work.
	Furthermore, the cable company doesn&apos;t keep records beyond a year, or so the representative claims, so even once my mother handled the issue, she wouldn&apos;t be able to retrieve all the records that she was looking for.
</p>
<p>
	When my mother got home, she was angry that i had not tried to reach her at work and explain the situation.
	However, the cable company had already tried to reach her.
	As she was unreachable, it didn&apos;t make sense for me to also try to reach her.
</p>
<p>
	Tomorrow, my mother and I will head to Springfield for a few hours.
	She will be going to court while I will be working on cleaning up our old residence.
</p>
<p>
	The <abbr title="Internal Revenue Service">IRS</abbr> wrote back.
	(I have redacted my email address due to it containing my legal name.
	If you want my legal name, you&apos;ll have to put in the minimal effort required to find my <abbr title="Domain Name System">DNS</abbr> domain name from the foot of this Web page and run a whois query on it.
	I&apos;ve also redacted the survey access key, as I don&apos;t need people filling out the survey on my behalf.)
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
	Please use the ticket number located in the subject line of this email in any correspondence with the IRS
</p>
<p>
	SUBJECT: Comment from Web Site sent to irs.gov.website.helpdesk@speedymail.com
</p>
<p>
	Dear [REDACTED]@y.st,
</p>
<p>
	Thank you for contacting the IRS.gov Website Help Desk.
</p>
<p>
	The purpose of the IRS Website Help Desk is to assist with navigational questions about IRS.gov.
	 We do not have access to specific tax related information.
</p>
<p>
	We are here to assist with finding content on the IRS.gov website.
	Please refer to the link below for information applicable to your inquiry.
</p>
<p>
	I do apologize but at this time contact by telephone would be your only option.
	Please refer to the link below for the number to call
</p>
<p>
	https://www.irs.gov/uac/Telephone-Assistance
</p>
<p>
	For additional website assistance or information, you may insert a few words or phrases relating to your inquiry into the &amp;#8216;Search&amp;#8217; field located at the top right hand corner (blue area) of our Web page.
	 You may also review our &apos;Frequently Asked Questions&apos; or &apos;Tax Topics&apos; Web pages.
</p>
<p>
	We appreciate your visit to our website and invite you to visit us for your future tax needs.
</p>
<p>
	I would like to know what you thought about your email experience.
	Please click the survey link (http://research.affina.com/snapwebhost/surveylogin.asp?k=[REDACTED]) to complete our online customer satisfaction survey.
</p>
<p>
	Sincerely,
</p>
<p>
	The IRS.gov Web Site Help Desk
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
	I was not amused.
	They had completely ignored the fact that I don&apos;t have telephone service and asked that I call anyway.
	I then proceeded to have an email discussion with them in which I couldn&apos;t get any reasonable information from them unless I focused on one detail at a time.
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
	As I said before, I cannot contact you by telephone.
	Telephone is not an option, because I have no telephone service.
</p>
<p>
	You said that you could help with navigation of the website.
	Can you please help me find the section of the website that provided non-telephone methods of contacting the IRS about these matters? There doesn&apos;t seem to be any obvious way to find the contact information.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	Please use the ticket number located in the subject line of this email in any correspondence with the IRS.
</p>
<p>
	SUBJECT: Comment from Web Site sent to irs.gov.website.helpdesk@speedymail.com
</p>
<p>
	Dear [REDACTED]@y.st,
</p>
<p>
	Thank you for contacting the IRS.gov Website Help Desk.
</p>
<p>
	The purpose of the IRS Website Help Desk is to assist with navigational questions about IRS.gov.
	 We do not have access to specific tax related information.
</p>
<p>
	I do apologize but at this time contact by telephone would be your only option.
	Please refer to the link below for the number to call
</p>
<p>
	https://www.irs.gov/uac/Telephone-Assistance
</p>
<p>
	I would like to know what you thought about your email experience.
	Please click the survey link (http://research.affina.com/snapwebhost/surveylogin.asp?k=[REDACTED]) to complete our online customer satisfaction survey.
</p>
<p>
	Sincerely,
</p>
<p>
	The IRS.gov Web Site Help Desk
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	I cannot call a telephone number.
	I have no telephone service.
	What do you want me to do?
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	Please use the ticket number located in the subject line of this email in any correspondence with the IRS.
</p>
<p>
	SUBJECT: Comment from Web Site sent to irs.gov.website.helpdesk@speedymail.com
</p>
<p>
	Dear [REDACTED]@y.st,
</p>
<p>
	Thank you for contacting the IRS.gov Website Help Desk.
</p>
<p>
	The purpose of the IRS Website Help Desk is to assist with navigational questions about IRS.gov.
	 We do not have access to specific tax related information.
</p>
<p>
	We are here to assist with finding content on the IRS.gov website.
	Please refer to the link below for information applicable to your inquiry.
	Please click on your state or if you are out of the country please click international.
</p>
<p>
	https://www.irs.gov/uac/Contact-Your-Local-IRS-Office-1
</p>
<p>
	For additional website assistance or information, you may insert a few words or phrases relating to your inquiry into the ‘Search’ field located at the top right hand corner (blue area) of our Web page.
	 You may also review our &apos;Frequently Asked Questions&apos; or &apos;Tax Topics&apos; Web pages.
</p>
<p>
	We appreciate your visit to our website and invite you to visit us for your future tax needs.
</p>
<p>
	I would like to know what you thought about your email experience.
	Please click the survey link (http://research.affina.com/snapwebhost/surveylogin.asp?k=[REDACTED]) to complete our online customer satisfaction survey.
</p>
<p>
	Sincerely,
</p>
<p>
	The IRS.gov Web Site Help Desk
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	You say that you can assist with navigational questions.
	Can you please help me navigate to the section of the website that provides email addresses at which to reach the IRS? Also, in one of the surveys, I saw that the IRS has a live chat option.
	Can you please help me find the page where that is located?
</p>
<p>
	Thank you.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
	The <abbr title="Internal Revenue Service">IRS</abbr> is really making me angry.
	I haven&apos;t heard back yet, but maybe I will get a straight answer with that last question.
	I know that it&apos;s a long shot, but I can hope.
</p>
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